Bitcoin and Ethereum might be in ranging mode, but ApeCoin and Dogecoin are at least two coins seeing some significant action over the past seven days.

Animals, eh? Bullish? We’ll look at why APE and DOGE have some investors frothing in a sec, although someone needs to make a ROO token to bounce around in this volatile market. (Checks CoinGecko… yep, they already did – it’s a gambling-based thing.)

But meanwhile, speaking of gambling, what’s going on with reasonably large exchange KuCoin and the cryptocurrencies some punters have entrusted it to hold? Stupendous levels of yield, on Bitcoin, Ethereum and other tokens, seemingly.

 

KuCoin’s insanely high yield offerings

Various entities on Crypto Twitter have expressed their disbelief at the fact the Seychelles-based KuCoin crypto exchange appears to be offering nearly 300% APR on Bitcoin (BTC), 200% on Ethereum (ETH) and 200% APR on the stablecoin Tether (USDT).

It certainly seems… generous, especially in this climate of fear, uncertainty and doubt regarding centralised crypto exchanges in the wake of the FTX collapse.

The fear is real, and that’s partly because KuCoin, like Binance, is one of the largest exchanges by trading volume. According to Investopedia, it has more than 10 million users and a presence in more than 200 countries.

To be fair, it’s also an exchange that’s long been known for its high yield, low fees and extremely wide selection of cryptocurrencies on offer for trading.

With yields this high, though, it does beg the question how an exchange can make such offers in the midst of a crippling bear market, and whether it could be running low on certain assets. Does it need to cover liabilities to “sucker in as much money as possible” as Kevin Svenson puts it above?

It’s all speculation at this stage, to which KuCoin has since responded in a reply to a tweet from Web3 advocate Alex Valaitis. The exchange says the high yields relate to their “Dual Investment” products and not their main earn product.

Apparently in this system, the amount earned depends on the staked asset performance at maturity.

 

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$870 billion, up almost 2% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

A little bit of relief for the crypto market overnight then, finding about 30 billion USD since this time yesterday.

A reasonable slice of that has gone into Dogecoin (DOGE), which is up another 7.6% overnight, since cooling off a bit yesterday. Overall, though, it’s been surging over the past seven days (+36%) and seems to be forming some momentum based on the following factors:

• Elon Musk’s apparent desire to build a “Tesla Phone” if Twitter were to be delisted from Apple’s App Store and other application stores on mobile devices.

• Tied to that, the speculation is that cryptos (including Musk fave DOGE) might be added inside a potential Tesla phone app as payments options.

• The likelihood of DOGE being a favoured payments option for Twitter as Musk expands and changes the social-media platform’s roadmap.

 

ApeCoin goes APE

ApeCoin (APE) – the governance and currency token for the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) ecosystem – has gone a bit bananas (had to do it) over the past 14 days. Similar to DOGE, it’s up around 30% over the past week, and actually closer to 40% over the past fortnight.

Why? Two words: staking rewards.

Excitement is starting to build for APE holders as this long-anticipated rewards system will reportedly be implemented in December. Announced by Horizen Labs, the staking protocol will provide APE holders, along with Bored Ape and Mutant Ape NFT owners, token-based rewards for staking the tokens they hold.

Not everyone’s happy, though, as several jurisdictions, including the US, will be blocked from using the staking function due to regulatory concerns.

The Ape Foundation has since suggested possible workarounds for affected countries and regions.

 

Uppers and downers: 11–100

Sweeping a market-cap range of about US$6.25 billion to about US$322 million in the rest of the top 100, let’s find some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

DAILY PUMPERS

• Huobi (HT), (market cap: US$913 million) +10%

• Dash (DASH), (mc: US$477 million) +8%

• Rocket Pool (RPL), (mc: US$345 million) +7%

• Fantom (FTM), (mc: US$566 million) +6%

• THORChain (RUNE), (mc: US$370 million) +5%

 

DAILY SLUMPERS

• BinaryX (BNX), (market cap: US$369 million) -3%

• NEXO (NEXO), (market cap: US$362 million) -2%

• KuCoin (KCS), (mc: US$641 million) -2%

• Synthetix (SNX), (mc: US$395 million) -1%

 

Around the blocks

A selection of rumour, randomness and pertinence that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse…

Uh-oh, another one bites the dust in the FTX crypto contagion?

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